Colin Kaepernick is definitely staying in shape in case the NFL comes calling

One of the many transparent “reasons” we’ve been told about why Colin Kaepernick wasn’t signed after the San Francisco 49ers released him last year was that he’s a vegan.

As such, we were told, Kaepernick couldn’t gain or maintain weight.

About that …

Looks ready to go

Colin Kaepernick looks ready to go if an NFL team calls. (AP)

On Tuesday, Kaepernick’s longtime girlfriend, Nessa Diab, posted a photo of the quarterback on social media. Kaepernick is in a gym, with free weights behind him, his arms thickly muscled.

Nessa, as she’s known, captioned the photo “summertime fine” in admiration of her man’s physique.

But Kaepernick also posted the same photo a short time later, and showing that he has a long memory and heard the stories from anonymous NFL sources, hashtagged it, “#NotBadForAVegan.”

While it seems clear at this point that Kaepernick won’t be playing in the NFL again, he certainly looks like he’d be ready if he got a call. (He does have a standing offer from the mayor of Birmingham, Ala. to play for that team’s Alliance of American Football team when it begins play next year.)

Kaepernick has been vegan for over two years; in 2016, he lost a significant amount of weight as he was recovering from multiple surgeries, and maintained at the time that it had nothing to do with his diet, but his inability to be in the weight room during rehab.

Also, Tom Brady’s strict diet is almost vegan, with very little meat or fish, and while it’s easy to make fun of Brady for considering avocado ice cream to be a “treat,” no one has told a reporter it’s a detriment to his performance.

On Sunday, Kaepernick was among 12 honorees at the National Education Association’s Human and Civil Rights Awards ceremony; he received the NEA President’s Award, the highest honor the teacher’s group gives.

The Know Your Rights camps are free for youth, and “aim to raise awareness of higher education, self-empowerment and instructions on how to properly interact with law enforcement in various scenarios.”